Saturday, May 17, 2008

Term Insurance - Its the only protection you will ever need

Insurance is an important facet of financial planning. And as with everything to do with money, it is good to start as early as possible.

However, financial education is not something that's taught within the realms of our education system. That's why most Singaporeans lag behind when it comes to managing their personal finances once they start working. The fact that many banks and insurance companies come knocking rather over-zealously in the form of telemarketers or people who accost you at roadshows, have forced many young professionals to further withdraw into their shell and ignore the need to properly manage their wealth.

The key here is that it is possible to do this by yourself; without feeling obliged to any sales person who has a vested interest to sell you a particular product or service.

Starting to save early is only one small facet of managing your personal wealth. The other is to grow and protect it - Against inflation and any unforseen events. Wealth management, summarized to the core is essentially just about investments and insurance.

The main thing is to clearly differentiate between the two - Banks and insurance firms have been packaging their products in many innovative ways these days, making it all the more complicated for the layman to understand what they are getting themselves into.

Insurance for that matter, should just be that - to insure and protect you and your loved ones against any unforseen situations. Forget about complicated investment-linked insurance products or even whole life insurance plans - All you need is a term life insurance plan; something that gives you high coverage at a reasonable cost. The difference in the premium payments (which can turn out to be a fair bit) can then be used for actual investing.

There are many potential ways you can look at growing your wealth. Buying stocks, bonds, unit trusts, trading currencies, options, deravatives - the list goes on. But the important thing is to clearly split the two - so that you know exactly what your money is doing and where it goes in terms of generating wealth.